00:00What is the general sentiment in Afghan diaspora who is now in exile in, you know, different
00:05countries, UK, US? It's a collective trauma. Me and my colleagues have talked about this many
00:11times. It's a different type of PTSD. It's a different type of survivor's guilt. I think
00:15many of us regret leaving the country and it's hard. You have a better life. You're safer. You
00:25have luxuries in life whenever you live outside of Afghanistan. But you watch your own people
00:30crumbling. You watch your own people having no rights. You watch your own people just losing
00:36your culture, losing your identity, losing who you are. The culture that my parents raised
00:41me with, the culture that most of my colleagues were raised in, that's being taken away. And
00:47Islamist extremist ideology is being replaced from that beautiful culture, those beautiful
00:54traditions that we had. So that's traumatizing. So majority of us are very traumatized. And
01:02the worst part is whenever you speak about it, most of the international community will
01:07say, well, hey, you're not in the country anymore. You can't speak. But whenever you're
01:11in the country, you can't speak because you have a gun pointed at your head. So who's
01:16allowed to speak? It's almost like they've shut our mouths by force and they have guns to
01:20all of our heads when each person that's left Afghanistan is still deeply connected and deeply
01:26rooted back home. So every Afghan voice, every person in exile right now, they have something
01:34to say. And it's not just their words. We're all connected with people back home who give
01:38us messages and depend on us to relay that message to the rest of the world. And that's the only
01:44way that they feel seen or heard. So thank you again for giving me this opportunity to speak.
01:50Because it's not just me speaking. It's the people who call on me and count on me and write
01:54me letters and send me voice messages day in and day out who see people like me as their
02:00hope, as their light. So thank you for extending that like and reflecting it throughout the world.
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